Kharkiv has 3.5 times London's population

I don't understand war. Attacking and invading a neighbouring county makes absolutely no sense to me. None. Here, in North America, I don't think most folk have a good handle on just what a fine country the Ukraine is. And Russia is can be a damn fine place to live as well. And yet, an invasion may not be on the table, as they say, but it is a possibility. Why?

I decided to check out the Ukraine and I chose the city of Kharkiv in which to do some sightseeing thanks to Google Street Views. Why Kharkiv? I caught a journalist, who was working in Kharkiv, being interviewed on CNN. I thought it must be a rather important city if a foreign journalist was stationed there.

Kharkiv has a large, popular, city park. London has a city-block sized park, too. I checked out the Ukrainian park. Wow! The Kharkiv park is absolutely amazing. 

There was a time London's park had a fountain but no more.  It was removed and discarded some years ago.

The heritage section of Kharkiv is not as intact as one might like but it does boast the presence of a large number of fine, old structures. London does not have a heritage district. The vast majority are gone and the one's remaining are sprinkled about here and there. The last intact block of heritage structures was torn down in order to build a massive downtown mall and then the mall was never built. Today a hockey arena occupies the land.

Kharkiv is a larger city than London. It has about 3.5 times the population of London. In 1975, the Ukrainian city started to build a subway. Today there are some 30 metro stations. In 1975, London politicians were discussing how to build an improved transit system. Today the London politicians are still discussing how best to build a rapid transit system. Nothing has been done but at least London is now considering a rapid transit system. For the moment, London will continue to use simple buses. Come back in 40 years and see what has changed.

Covid is not stopping the fun

It is not just COVID that introduces risk and danger to kid's lives. Spent a few minutes watching young people taking flight as they hit the jumps at Boler Mountain, in London, and if you have a child out there on the slopes, you cannot help but have some concern.

That said, I watched a lot of skiers crank up the speed and fly off the edge of a jump and although some fell, I didn't see one jumper show any signs of injury. It may be safer than it looks. It has to be. I don't think Boler could afford the insurance if it weren't.

Convoy of truckers made headlines across Canada

 

A convoy of truckers opposed to the cross-border, truck driver vaccine mandate made newspaper headlines right across Canada. First Canada barred unvaccinated American drivers from entering Canada, then the U.S. moved to mirror Canada's border restrictions by banning unvaccinated Canadian truck drivers from crossing into the States.

It is believed that a vast majority of the drivers affected by the mandate are vaccinated. Yet, the small percentage of unvaccinated drivers are attracting attention out of proportion to their numbers. As the day wore on, the convoy protest seemed to morph into a protest against all COVID vaccines and COVID-related shutdowns.

Many participating in the convoy and many of their supporters lining the route said they were not convinced of the need even to vaccinate against COVID-19. 

How does the Canadian Trucking Alliance feel about the convoy? It strongly disapproves.

The Heron Says, This is Our Home

Condo developments more often than not are composed of row upon row of identical housing units on nondescript private streets. Move in and until one has lived there for awhile, it can be tough telling your unit from all the others. 

One solution: a metal heron. Only one home has a metal heron standing guard at the front. The heron says to the owners, this is our home.

Baby It's Cold Outside

Days like this make me recall Canadian singer Michael Bublé singing a duet of "Baby It's Cold Outside" with Idina Menzel.

Once there were seals

At one time London's Springbank Park had a small zoo with a number of exotic animals. The most popular exhibit was the seal pool. At one point a seal named Slippery escaped from the enclosure, made it to the nearby Thames River and travelled down the river to the Great Lakes. It was captured near Cleveland and returned to its London home. The now famous seal attracted thousands of folk to the small zoo over the following years.

But zoos are no longer the attraction they once were. In fact, today many people take offence at seeing wild animals held in small enclosure and locked in cages. The London zoo was shutdown and the animals sent to other facilities to live out the remainder of their days. 

Unfortunately for the seals, most died in transit. The London seals were true zoo animals, born and raised in captivity. They did not handle being forcibly removed from their London home and placed in small tanks in the backs of large trucks. 

Possibly the trucks were too hot, or the the tanks too small, but whatever the cause, most of the seals died in the backs of those trucks. Very sad. The seals are still missed today.

London photographer shoots "Liquid Mountains"

A London photographer specializes in capturing the wild fury of the Great Lakes. An Australian friend, on seeing some of his images, told Dave Sandford that Sandford was shooting images of "liquid mountains."

The local paper, The London Free Press, did a story on Sandford and his passion. The reporter was impressed by both Sandford and his photos. Check out Sandford's photos for yourself. I'm sure you will be, forgive me, blown away: see The Great Lakes collection.

The world is not all the same

 I have, at times, heard people say that the world is all the same today. A city in Canada is in many ways the same as a city elsewhere in the world. I have to concede that in some cases, they are right. Modern glass buildings, whether apartment blocks or commercial districts, can often look very similar no matter where these structures have been built.

But then there are things like fences. These two fences, which I found in the eastern Ukraine using Google Street Views, are unlike anything I have ever encountered anywhere in North America. I wonder how old these fences are and whether or not this style of fencing is still be installed in the East European country. And is it common elsewhere in Europe?

Racing at Boler

 

Watching this racer Saturday at Boler Mountain made me think of two of my granddaughters. They have both been taking skiing lessons at Boler Mountain in London for a few years. The oldest is outgrowing the classes and looking for someway to extend herself. The eight week junior ski program at the local ski hill is looking more and more attractive.

$1.449/litre is $4.36 U.S. for a U.S. gal.

 

Gas is getting expensive in Canada. Although a bunch of green onions has been hit harder by inflation than gasoline. One bunch of green onions can run a careful shopper almost $2. Unbelievable. The price of gasoline is still worth a mention.

Gas is sold by the litre in Canada. Friday it was hitting nearly $1.50 per litre at some name brand stations. Although not quite as bad, it was still $1.449 at off brand gas bars. That converts to $6.59 for an imperial gallon of fuel or $5.49 for a American gallon. Why the difference? The U.S. gallon is much smaller than the traditional Canadian or Imperial gallon.

As the Canadian dollar is not worth as much as the U.S. dollar. The price drops to $4.36 per gallon when paid for in U.S. funds. Yanks think they have it tough with gas running around $2.40 a gallon in the States. Americans would be so surprised to know how much stuff costs outside the U.S.

A reverse after school pick-up

 

Usually when the parents arrive at the school at the end of the day it is to pick up the kids. This time was different, dad was dropping off something: sleds and snow saucers. There's are small hills in the park beside the school that are excellent for sledding. The slopes are long but not too long and steep enough for fun but safe play. And so dad made a drop-off instead of a pick-up. If the winter is long with lots of snow, more than one parent will be doing this reverse after school pick-up.

A very complex story with a sad ending for many

 

Champion road graders have quite a history. The first Champion road graders were horse-drawn. When it became possible to make self propelled road graders, Champion made the first ones. When hydraulics came onto the scene, Champion was the first to improve their machines with the new technology. With operations in both Canada and the United States, Champion was a solid company shipping graders all over the world to almost a hundred countries.

Then it was sold to Volvo Construction Group in 1997. Although the promise was "No jobs will be lost," the Goderich plant was closed by the end of 2009. I believe the original operations in the States have also been lost.

Then in 2014, in a move to cut costs, the Volvo Group discontinued production of motor graders as well as backhoes at its Shippensburg facility. Production of both lines was transferred to Volvo Construction Equipment’s Chinese subsidiary. The Shippensburg facility produced its first motor grader only about four years ago earlier when the motor grader line was moved to Pennsylavania from Ontario.

The end result of all the opening and closing of plants was the loss of about 1,000 jobs in four countries, Poland, the US, Brazil and Canada.

Not-for-profit, a win for the community

 

Boler Mountain is a not-for-profit that has been adding to the richness of the living-in-London experience for more than seven decades. Boler opened originally as a small ski hill with very little going for it other than location. For London area skiers, Boler was close and that was its major drawing point.

A trip to Blue Mountain near Collingwood on Georgian Bay takes a full three hours. When the day is done there is another three hour drive to be tackled before one is finally back home. A day trip to one of the ski hills near Pontiac, in Michigan, demands more than another hour behind the wheel. The distant hills may be bigger and the runs longer but the time spent on the road drains a lot of fun from the day.

Five years ago, Boler expanded its existing forty-year-old chalet and that is using the word chalet rather generously. The resort likes to brag that the new chalet has a large modern kitchen. The young skiers could care less. Steaming hot chocolate, crispy French fries plus hamburgers, cheese burgers and hot dogs keep the kids happy. 

And if one prefers bringing their own hot chocolate and brown bagging it to keep skiing cost down, Boler mountain allows that too. But, when one comes in off the hill, a serving of the traditional French Canadian ski hill standby, poutine, is awfully hard to resist. 

Poutine, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is a serving of French fries sprinkled with fresh, cheese curds and then smothered with hot gravy. The cheese curds immediately start melting and the poutine is ready to eat. Oodles of calories but skiers can handle it.

Boler Mountain has a reputation for snowmaking

 

Ski Area Management, covering the ski resort industry in North America, has short-listed Boler Mountain for the honour of being declared to have the best snowmaking crew on the continent. Boler Mountain is up against such big names as Sugarloaf in Maine and Vail Mountain in Colorado.

Considering how little snow there is to be found on the ground surrounding the small ski hill located in the middle of a London, Ontario, suburb, the snowmaking experts at Boler have earned their place in the annual competition.

And that snow is not cheap. The little hill gets no break from the city but pays the full industrial rate for the water supplied by the City of London PUC.

A ski hill and tubing runs right in the suburbs

 

There are three tubing runs at Boler Mountain. The runs are about ten stories high and tubes have been clocked going as fast as 70 km/h. I find that amazing but even more amazing is the fact that the tubing runs are almost in the backyards of some of the most expensive new homes in London. I expected the NIMBY, not in my backyard, movement to try to shut down the suburban winter sport resort but so far so good.

Maybe its age is providing the facility with some protection. It is decades old and its roots extend deep into the last century. Maybe the fact that the resort is mainly known for its skiing, a winter sport with some panache, also helps to keep the critics at bay.

Come to think of it, I have noted downhill ski tracks appearing at the backyard gate behind some of the homes. My guess it that the homeowners have a family membership and to go skiing they simply put on their gear and slip out their back door. In some cases, there may be a high-speed quad chairlift immediately behind the home.

A chairlift and ski slope may be fine behind a home but I must admit I would find the noise of the snow making machines a bit hard to live with.

Parking Lot Snow Piles Attract Kids

 

It's winter. There's no school, at least not until Monday. There's very little snow. And even if there was, playing with friends is difficult with COVID-19 raging. But there are still great mounds of snow scraped off the parking lot at the local strip mall. To kids desperate for something to do, these piles of snow spell F-U-N. One can climb 'em, slide down 'em and, when tuckered, one can just relax and chat with a friend on 'em.

Walk the grounds of Machu Picchu from your computer

 

Since posting about Google Street Views, I've learned that others have also discovered the richness of the Street Views coverage. One person told me, "Their (Google's) camera even went down all the pedestrian paths in Parc Buttes Chaumont in Paris."

I thought the amount of time spent visually mapping Machu Picchu was impressive. I'm adding the Parc Buttes Chaumont to my still short list.

I cannot overstate how much I have learned about cities by reading about places posted by the City Daily Photo group and then tracking down the locations in Google Street Views.